Hilaly urges Muslims not to rally (Awwww!!!)

SHEIK Taj al-Din al-Hilaly has asked his followers to call off Saturday's planned rally which has been organised as a show of support for the besieged cleric.

The sheik has gone on Voice of Islam Radio in Sydney thanking his supporters for their faith but urging them not to attend the unofficial rally at Lakemba.

"He just called for people not to go, not to participate in the rally which doesn't show our way of faith," said Moussab Legha, a cleric at the radio station.

Mr Legha said the sheik will be attending Friday prayers at Lakemba Mosque tomorrow and has asked Muslims to show their support by joining him there.

Thousands of Muslims had been marshalled to attend a rally on Saturday by text messages and emails, but Mr Legha said all clerics had tried to stop the unofficial demonstration.

The sheik has been under fire to step down as Australia's senior Muslim cleric following his delivery of a sermon last month which suggested immodestly dressed women invited sexual assault.

Muslim community groups have come together to call for an end to "overblown" public scrutiny of Sheik Taj al-Din al-Hilaly's comments.

They accused the media and politicians of using the scandal surrounding the mufti to vilify Muslims.

Hilaly praises Iraq jihadists
NEWS.com.au ^ | 10/30/06 | Richard Kerbaj
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1727972/posts

(snip)
The revelation comes as a neighbouring cleric from Sydney's Bankstown accused Sheik Hilaly of supporting military Islamic jihad against the West and called on imams from around the country to band together and force the mufti to step down.
Sheik Ibrahim El-Shafie yesterday said Sheik Hilaly was a follower of the Egyptian Islamic scholar Qutb, one of the founding fathers of modern jihad, whose teachings are seized upon by al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiah.

(snip)
As the Lebanese Muslim Association, which hosts the Lakemba Mosque, was last night still divided about how to handle the Hilaly crisis, Sheik Shafie launched a scathing attack on his fellow Sunni cleric.
Sheik Shafie said Sheik Hilaly was "extremist" who posed as a moderate for political advantage which ultimately gained him citizenship.
"This person is acting like a chameleon," he told The Australian yesterday. "The chameleon, if it stands on green spot it turns green. If it stands on a blue spot it turns blue - so he's camouflaging.
"He might say we condemn such and such but then on the other side, when he is with his followers in the mosque, he'll start expressing his anti-Western views."
Sheik Shafie said the nation's imams needed to unite to remove him as spiritual leader at Lakemba, where he presides over the largest group of Muslim worshipper in Australia.

Muslim community groups have come together to call for an end to "overblown" public scrutiny of Sheik Taj al-Din al-Hilaly's comments.

They accused the media and politicians of using the scandal surrounding the mufti to vilify Muslims.

I wondered how long they could hold off from taking this line.

They just had to be in extreme pain from their previous public stance of, "don't confuse him and his offensive remarks with us! We are really, (really, this time we mean it) peaceful Australians who just happen to also be Muslim!"

Go to Sydney anyway; a bunch may still show up for you to point & laugh at.

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